


Anchors and Newsprint

by yukiawison



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiawison/pseuds/yukiawison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David Jacobs had never been anyone's anchor. Jack Kelly had never been anyone's first choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchors and Newsprint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taliatheloser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taliatheloser/gifts).



> This is for you Talia.

"Honestly it's not that hard. See now you use the first postulate to show...crap do you have another...?"  
  
Jack Kelly handed him a pen out of his apron pocket and shot him an easy grin, too easy it seemed for a Monday afternoon in the middle of his double shift. One tanned arm was stretched out lazily over the pastel booth; the other was cradling a copy of the Hearst High School Herald, an unfortunately alliterative publication of which David Jacobs was the editor-in-chief.  
  
"Thanks," he said, with a glance up at his friend. "You know if you're not interested in any of this just say the word and I'll leave you in peace."  
  
His smile somehow grew wider and he fidgeted with the bandana he wasn't supposed to wear at work but got away with because his boss Denton liked him. "When have I ever wanted peace Dave?"  
  
This was true. David had met Jack when they were ten. Jack was knee deep in a particularly choppy part of the creek that ran behind the Jacobs' house.

"What are you doing?" David had shouted from the other side of the murky water.

Jack Kelly had looked up at him; eyes fire even then, and shot him a nervous smile. It had begun to rain. "There's a puppy," he slicked his hair back with the arm that wasn't keeping him balanced in the fast moving current. "Stuck on that rock."

David had only come down to check on the tadpoles he'd seen the other day. There was a puppy, a soaking wet mutt shaking on a rock that jutted out of the creek bed. Jack was halfway to it, one hand tethered to a branch, the other stretched out. He lifted up a soggy boot and took another step.

"You're going to fall! The forecast says it's supposed to storm. I can get my parents. They'll know what to do. You should really get out before you hurt yourself or…"

"Are you going to keep running your mouth or are you going to help me kid?"

David frowned. He wasn't often called kid or told to shut up. "Fine," he said after Jack had taken another step and nearly fallen over. The puppy whined.

He took off over the bridge to the other side of the creek. "What do you want me to do?" Jack whipped his head around to look him up and down. David had rolled up his pant legs and shirt sleeves and was now standing awkwardly at his shoulder. _Who was this kid?_

"You're gonna be the branch now okay?" He took his hand and pulled him forward a few steps. David got the picture and waded in behind Jack.

"Hold on pipsqueak we're coming," Jack called as the puppy's whining intensified and thunder rumbled overhead. He went out farther, slowly, carefully so he didn't fall over. David was Jack's anchor for a moment: something he'd never been up until then. His father was the anchor in his family, or maybe his mother: she always seemed to know where she belonged. She was among friends in the neighborhood, hosting book clubs and pot lucks and floating happily beside his father. Sarah ran track at the middle school. She was good at it too, an anchor on her team. If he was honest maybe David didn't feel rooted anywhere because he didn't know who he was. But the day he met Jack, if only for a moment, he was an anchor for something.

"Just a little farther kid," he said. He was fingertips from the puppy now. Rain was pounding on David's back and his arm was starting to ache where Jack was pulling him. He took a shaky step forward. His mother would be angry that he was ruining his shoes. Jack let go. David looked up from the frothy water.

"Back up kid. I've got him." He did as he was told. Panting on the shore, the reckless boy with the puppy told him his name.

"I'm David," he replied. His hair was dripping into his face now. "And you're welcome," he said sorely.

"What were you even doing down here just before a storm?" he asked, ignoring the other boy's fish for a thank you. "It seems to me I should be the one questioning your motivations," he pronounced motivation carefully like it was a new word he didn't want rolling off his tongue the wrong way.

"The tadpoles and I…you know what it doesn't matter Mr. Jack Kelly. Have you got a place for that pup or do you want to take it into my house?" Jack frowned, looking down at the scrappy dog with wide brown eyes. It reminded him a little of Crutchy. He wasn't sure how his foster parents would feel about the little thing. He hadn't been with them long enough to gauge what their reaction would be. He figured two nuisances to feed wouldn't be ideal.

"Sure, yeah okay, thank you…" he trailed off, looking up at his "rescuer" (rescuer seemed to be laying it on a bit thick) for the first time. He had about the bluest eyes he'd ever seen below a mess of dark curls that were getting soggier by the minute.

He smiled. "Alright then, come on. My house is this way."

They ended up getting the puppy and Jack Kelly fed, dry, and home. Jack several hours later when the rain stopped and David's father drove him and David to get ice cream and then back to Jack's foster home, and the puppy a week later when one of Sarah's friends offered to take the fluffball, affectionately nicknamed Pebble, to live with her. The week after that David learned that Jack Kelly was the new student in his 5th grade class. The week after that they were best friends.

"When do you get off?" David asked, suddenly bored with geometry and more interested in what Jack Kelly's plans were on the clear skied night.

"Seven," he replied. "You gonna wait around that long?"

David shrugged, a bit sheepishly if Jack cared to look hard enough at the gesture, which he did. Jack smirked. It seemed to him that that first day they'd met he'd lost a puppy and yet gained one. David Jacobs followed him around like he had something more to offer than a precarious ride on the back of his beat up bike and the fists to scare off any bully. Jack often wondered, as Davey drifted between the other nerds with their expensive calculators and thick books by Russian guys whose names he couldn't pronounce and Jack Kelly and his ragtag posse of rejects, what a guy like David saw in _him_. But he saw something, something that kept him coming back no matter how long he had to watch him taking orders or mopping up ketchup stained tile.

"Hey Jacobs!" David didn't look up at first because he was rarely the Jacobs sibling anyone was looking for. His sister Sarah, more often referred to as "Sprinter" due to her, as Jack had once put _freakishly fast race times._ _Seriously Dave your sister's a walking Jimmy John's commercial. No a running…a running Jimmy John's commercial. Get it Davey? Get it?_

"Dave." Jack nudged his shoulder before darting off to refill someone's water. He made meaningful eye contact as he did this, a look David coded as: I've got your back if you need it but this situation seems to demand space. Jacky was one of the few people who could give this look simply enough for David to read.

"Spot Conlon," he said, watching the other boy warily as he slid into the other side of the booth. "How can I help you?"

"You should really be asking how _I_ can help _you_ Jacobs." He leaned his elbow on the table and reached for the ketchup bottle.

"What do you have Conlon?" Spot squirted some ketchup in Davey's half empty basket of fries and helped himself.

Spot was something of an informant for the Herald, if high school papers could even have informants. Spot knew what went on behind closed doors and under bleachers and could dig dirt up on anyone. This made him useful, and very dangerous.

"Have you gotten your hands on this Katherine Plumber chick yet?"

David didn't appreciate his diction. He frowned. "Who?"

"Katherine Plumber," he said through a mouthful of fries. "She's a transfer student. I heard she was kicked out of her old school for some investigative journalism shit. She caught the administration taking money for textbooks and using it for the football team or something. I don't know all the details but I know she's the kind of badass you want on your staff. If you don't act soon yearbook's going to snatch her up."

Jack looked over from where he was cleaning off an empty table. He never liked it when Conlon waltzed in and convinced Davey he needed him. Jack didn't trust the bastard. For every good tip he offered he had twice the no good tips stocked up to fool some sucker. That and he didn't like the way he looked at Davey like he was a prize to be won.

"Alright," David said, pleased. "I'll look into it. Now what do you want?" Usually Spot's tips cost David his math homework or a milkshake. It wasn't the most journalistically honorable of actions but it got the job done.

"How about your digits?"

Across the diner Jack fumbled with the change he was handing someone. Pennies skittered across the counter and David looked up at him.

_Did Spot just ask for Dave's number?_

"My what?"

"Your number idiot," Spot replied, embarrassed.

David blinked. "You want…okay?" He said hesitantly. "Alright, why not?" He scrawled his cell number on a napkin and handed it over. "I'm pretty sure that's the strangest thing you've ever asked me for but alright. See you around Conlon."

"I'll call you," he replied, scooting out of the booth and shooting a grin in Jack's direction. Jack's fists were balled at his sides now.

"What did he want?" He said, striding over to meet Davey.

"My number, for some reason." Was it his imagination or did Jack Kelly look the same shade of red as Spot? In honesty he was still trying to process what had just happened.

"Do you…?" he stopped, looking at David critically. "I thought he was just for tips?"

"Well yes, but…"

"Do you like him?" he asked, taken aback.

"I don't know. Does it matter? It's only my number." David squirmed in the booth.

"Maybe it doesn't matter to you but to him you know…you could uh. I don't know. Are you leading him on?" Jack didn't know why it was so hard to get words out all of a sudden.

"What are you talking about? It isn't as if he proposed. If he calls it's one date."

"Oh, he'll call," Jack growled.

"What is that supposed to mean?" He replied darkly. David didn't get many dates. Actually he'd gotten hardly any the entirety of high school and now his best friend was interrogating him about his prospects.

"It means that Spot Conlon's a snake and you can do better."

 _Who does Spot Conlon think he is coming in on my friend?_ Jack thought before stopping himself. _Why the hell did he care?_ But it was too late, he'd already run his big mouth.

"Well I don't see you offering," he said sharply. "And you don't even know him."

"I know him plenty," he snapped.

"Look, I'm leaving. If you decide you want to tell me what this is really about instead of railing on me for nothing, give me a call." David got up, slammed some cash down on the table, and left.

"Well now I've done it," Jack said to no one in particular. He was lucky the diner was so quiet this time of night or else the whole place would've heard them argue.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around. He'd never seen the girl before. She had on a perfectly pressed white blouse buttoned up to the collar and a blue pleated skirt that hugged her slim waist. Her auburn hair was curled and there was a pencil tucked behind one of her ears. She raised an eyebrow when she noticed him staring. "What's the matter?" she said. "You wanna tell _me_ ," she looked down at the memo pad she was holding. "Quote 'what this is really about instead of railing on me for nothing' end quote?"

So someone _had_ heard. "Table for one?" He grumbled.

"I'll sit at the counter," she smiled. "The name's Katherine Plumber."

"I didn't ask."

"I know, but I'm in the business of getting my name out. It's a lot easier to get people to trust you when they have all the facts."

"And what are all the facts?" Katherine took a seat at the counter and Jack handed her a menu.

"I'm new in town. I transferred from Pulitzer Academy about 30 miles from here. Contrary to word on the street I wasn't kicked out for exposing school secrets."

"So you aren't an investigative reporter."

She shook her curls vehemently. "No I am; don't get me wrong on that. I did expose the administration with my expert sleuthing and mastery of the Associated Press style. I just didn't get kicked out for that. I left Pulitzer of my own volition. I decided to bring my talents elsewhere."

"And elsewhere is Hearst High?" There was something about this girl. She was making him feel like he'd known her for years partway through their first conversation.

"Right you are. Here," she pulled something out of her blouse pocket. "Take my card." Jack Kelly didn't know teenagers had business cards, but there hers was: Katherine Plumber, Investigative Journalist. The back had her email, phone number, and LinkedIn.

"You have a LinkedIn?"

"It's never too early to show your professional expertise to potential employers." She put down the menu. "I'll have a BLT and a vanilla shake please. Oh and your name. I'll also have your name."

"You're a little demanding aren't you?"

She frowned. "Demanding, bossy, bitchy, I've heard it all."

"I'm Jack Kelly. It's nice to meet you," he said, noting how her face had fallen when she spoke. He took down her order and put it into the kitchen. "Are you going to join the Hearst Herald?"

She smiled widely. "Now we get back to him. That was David Jacobs correct? The Herald's editor?"

"Yeah, you've heard about him?"

"I've heard plenty. And read plenty of his work. He's very talented."

"I know."

She leaned her elbows on the table, crowding him. He took a step back. "So that fight…?"

"Argument," he corrected.

"Fine, argument. Which of them do you have eyes for?"

"Excuse me?" Jack could feel heat rising to his face.

She blinked at him, feigning innocence. "Is David Jacobs too good for Spot Conlon because Spot Conlon is perfect for you? Or is Spot a snake because you're the one David needs?"

He gritted his teeth. "So you've deduced that this is all about me?"

"No," she said with a sigh. "I think David did that. I just wrote down what he said."

He had a comeback ready to fire at her when his phone buzzed, and since he was a lousy employee he took it out to look at the message. It was from Sarah.

Sarah Jacobs: Dude, what did u say 2 my brother?

"Damn, Sarah's gonna kill me."

"Sarah Jacobs?" Katherine looked up from the notes she'd been inspecting. "As in David's track star sister?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "So you've heard of Sprinter too?"

Katherine blushed, she actually blushed. "I mean there are plenty of quotes from her in the Herald's website's sports section."

"Yeah, and photos of her in their photo galleries. You know she comes here with the track team on Tuesdays after school."

"Tomorrow is Tuesday."

"Wow, she can read a calendar too."

She glared at him. "Fine, I get the in on your secrets, you get the in on mine. What do you say? Friends?"

Her BLT arrived at the window so he set it down in front of her. "Sure, friends." They shook on it.

***

"Spot Conlon? You can't be serious," Racetrack said with wide eyes. There were in English, and were supposed to be reading quietly. It was hard to focus on _Pride and Prejudice_ when there was this much new information to share.

"Well you have to tell him now," Crutchy cut in with a harsh whisper. He didn't usually like to be caught gossiping in the middle of class but this was important.

"Tell him what exactly?"

His two friends eyed him disparagingly. The three of them were foster kids, most of Jack's friends apart from David, Sarah, and now Katherine were. They'd banded together over the years through different foster parents, navigating the system, and waiting until they could live on their own.

"That you like him dummy," Crutchy continued. "I mean you _do_ like him right? Like Elizabeth likes Mr. Darcy, like Jane Eyre likes Rochester, like Romeo likes Juliet, Achilles likes Patroclus?"

"I think you're stretching a bit with that last one," Racetrack said.

"Oh shut up I'm just trying to keep the focus on literature," he looked around. "Which is definitely, 100% what we're talking about." Ms. Larkson had looked up from her book at the three of them, and they all ducked their heads down to avoid her wrath.

Of course Jack liked Davey. Sometimes he was all he thought about for hours when there were difficult customers at the diner or when he was alone in his room listening to his favorite music on Spotify and drawing the same old doodles of deserts and tumbleweed. The real question was whether or not a guy like David Jacobs would take someone like him, with only a glimmer of a future and a meager savings account made up of crumpled ones and nickels and dimes tossed over sticky plastic menus. He wasn't even smart like Davey.

"I don't know what to say," he said instead of all this. "I don't even know how to begin."

After class Jack had work. As Katherine had so astutely pointed out it was Tuesday, so Sarah and her track friends were congregated at their usual table laughing over their cherry cokes and pulling their hair into pony tails of various lengths.

"Hey there Amber, Michelle, Ashley…how was practice?" Jack came over with a tray and started taking their glasses for refills. Sarah gave him the stink eye and the rest of the girls laughed nervously and turned back to their respective entrees.

"You wanna tell me why my brother is so pissed at you?" Sarah Jacobs was pretty damn intimidating when she wanted to be. Her brown eyes were boring a hole in his skull.

"Les is angry with me? I had no idea."

"Cut the shit Kelly." Sarah was no nonsense when it came to looking out for her brothers, and if you hurt them she would hurt you.

"Did he tell you he gave Spot his number?"

"Gave Spot his…" Her look of utter bafflement was interrupted by Katherine's rather dramatic entrance. Today she was wearing a purple sundress that fell to her knee and a slightly rumpled beige cardigan that had every number of pens and post it notes tucked into the pockets. Her hair was pulled up in a hasty bun and she looked more frazzled than Jack thought was possible for her (given his limited knowledge of the girl.)

"Jack Kelly!" She exclaimed, bypassing Mush who was supposed to be seating people and running straight to him. "You didn't tell me you could draw!" She held up a photocopy of one of the portraits he'd done for art class last year. He didn't see anything particularly special in it, besides that it was of the girl who was currently staring at Katherine like she had two heads.

"So? I didn't tell you lots of things."

"Why aren't you illustrating for the Herald? Why aren't you pursuing this I've talked to your art teacher and she gave me the whole sob story of untapped potential." Jack looked to Sarah as if she could save him.

"Don't look at me buster, answer the lady's question," she replied, lips pursed. Katherine looked at who was talking, and then did a double take.

"You're…oh. Hi I'm…I didn't want to meet you like this. I'm usually not so…"

"This is Katherine Plumber," Jack filled in for her. "She's transferring for the new semester. She's very interested in the Herald and, it seems, the Hearst High track team."

The track girls smiled and introduced themselves. "And I guess you know Sarah," Ashley said when they were done.

"Well I've read about you on the Herald's website," Katherine said by way of explanation. She was fiddling awkwardly with her memo pad.

"You have?" Sarah looked impressed. She had plenty of "fans" at school but never anyone outside the Hearst High community. "Do you run track?"

"Oh gosh no," she replied, shaking her head like she had the night before. "You're just so eloquent when you talk about it in the stories and I got a little wrapped up in it all."

Sarah was grinning at her now, and flat out checking her out from the look of it. "Do you want to sit with us?" She asked.

"Me?" Katherine said. Jack nudged her. "Sure."

"Our fight has been postponed Kelly," Sarah said as Katherine slid into the seat beside her and she offered her some of her nachos.

"And our discussion of your artistic talents has also been postponed," Katherine added.

_Alright Nellie Bly enjoy your hard hitting investigation on flirting with jocks._

***

Jack called him twice Tuesday night, and three times Wednesday morning. He didn't pick up. He'd avoided him at lunch and didn't walk home with him like he usually did. He didn't see him until Wednesday afternoon in the diner when he finally decided that not giving him even the opportunity to explain himself was a juvenile way to deal with conflict.

The place was crowded but Jack was still fooling around at the counter. A pretty girl with curls and an open sketchpad was talking to him. She gestured wildly and he laughed and pointed to something on the paper. He couldn't hear what they were saying from far away but it looked fairly flirtatious. Jack put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in to whisper something in her ear. Jack didn't even look up when David turned and went out the way he came.

He didn't have time to watch his best friend flirt with some girl he'd never seen before. It didn't help that she was pretty, and from the look of it more interesting than David was. Something like jealousy bubbled up in his throat and he wondered if this was how Jack had felt when he gave Spot his number. It was stupid, flat out idiotic to be jealous of something like that but yet here he was, feeling pissed off and confused that he was pissed off.

"Hey Davey!" He was halfway down the street but Jack was still running after him. David stopped.

"What are you doing? You have work to do, and girls to flirt with evidently."

"Girls to…oh Katherine? I'm not flirting with Katherine Davey, she's my friend. And she'll probably be yours if she's as good a writer as she says she is."

"That's Katherine Plumber?"

Jack laughed. "Yeah and I think she's more interested in your sister than she is in me."

"My _sister_?"

"You don't have to end everything you say in a question this isn't an improv game." (Jack had spent a week in improv club at Skittery's request before quitting.) He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I was such a jerk. You can go out with Spot Conlon if you want to I'm not going to be an ass and get in the way of that."

"I don't like Spot. I just liked having someone who liked me," he admitted quietly. He wasn't going to just come out and say it; he'd intended to make Jack work more in his apology, but now that he'd had a taste of the idiocy that was the green eyed monster he felt like being upfront with it.

"Well you've got two people Davey," Jack muttered. "I just didn't say anything because I didn't know if you'd see anything in me. But now I'm thinking if you stuck around this long just being my friend maybe we could be something more than that."

"I see a lot in you," he said simply. "And I think I'd like that."

Jack's eyes were trained on the pavement but he looked up at him then, a question in his eyes. There was that feeling again, that sensation of being needed and felt and solid like an anchor. "Kiss me," he said. This time Jack was the one listening to him. He met him halfway and then Jack Kelly's lips were on his.

When they broke away Jack was dizzy and happy and couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. His vision got lost in the way David's eyes were on him, blue and deep and full of unanswered questions he'd have answers to as soon as his voice was back in his throat.

David spoke first, and sure enough it was the first in a series of questions Jack hoped he had the answers to. "That was great but I think we need to back track a second. What is this about my sister?"


End file.
